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ReportOn a not so regular base Microsoft does receive queries about issues with Outlook Synchronization in any release of Dynamics NAV. The relevant pages have not been exposed in D365 BC SaaS release.
To refresh memory:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics-nav/walkthrough--setting-up-outlook-synchronization
These support request may be very time consuming in resolving. Let me try to explain the common issues and configuration problems we did encounter over the years. Basically these issues are two folded:
1. synchronize too much data within one Outlook session via the Full Synchronization
2. usage of automatic synchronization based on an interval
When too much data is synchronized which typically happens if no filter or conditions have been set in the Outlook Synch. User Setup page, then the whole contact table is being sent to every single Dynamics NAV user that is also setup as an Outlook Synch. user. When using Exchange Server Online, there is no way to allow more items then 250 records to be synchronized in one Outlook session. When using Exchange Server OnPrem, there is a regkey that can be set on the Exchange Server registry. This will allow more items to be synchronized in one Outlook session. The Exchange Server will log a 9646 event ID for MSExchangeIS. The reason this limit was introduced was due to built in anti-spamming attacks. Just have a look at the application event log file and look for the mentioned object that is mentioned in the description in the event log. There are KB's that describe what regkey it is. Please be very careful when increasing the limit, there were good reasons to add that limitation to Exchange Server.
The design of the Outlook Synchronization is like this:
- enumerate changes
- for each entity, start from the stop and perform a synchronization
- update Dynamics NAV via table 5302 Outlook Synch. Link
- go to next entity
Now what happens is that if the synchronization stops due to Exchange Server stopping the connection, an Outlook Synchronization user stops Outlook because of a dead battery of his notebook or a Windows Update requires immediate reboot which does not happen that often anymore, the synchronization could stop during phase 1. If that happens, during next full synchronization it will try again. In the end, the synchronization will completely out of sync causing the well-known error to have a look at the debug log. The debug log can be enabled via outlook.exe.config file,but it will just dump the call stack. Not very helpful. If the Exchange Server did indeed stop the connection because more data was sent (>250 records), then it will give a message about "Administrator".
The only way to mitigate the scenario is to delete all already synchronized data from the Outlook dedicated folders and start the synchronization again. You may even have to delete data that is in the 5202 table. Very time consuming! There is no good way to clean up the duplication then to do this manually.
The underlying technology is based on XML files so if you cannot open these anymore with notepad, you can already assume the synchronization will take a while as well! Full synchronization should only be done once and then normal synchronization should be done as follow up to synchronize the changes based on table 405 Change Log Entry table.
With scheduled synchronization, the progress bar is disabled. The user is not notified the synchronization is running in the background. If user stops the Outlook session and when that happens during phase 1 (table 5302 not yet updated), the same problem could occur: Duplication of contacts!
Mitigation is again not to synchronize too much data and setup filters / condition. Only contacts that are useful for the business user should be part of the synchronization, but again this is a business decision which Microsoft can not answer. In theory it is possible to perform multiple full synchronization and synchronize 32000 contacts to Outlook. From support perspective, we do know from experience the user will in the end run into a synchronization issue. It is simply not designed to send such huge number of records. It is not something we make up ourselves, this 32000 number was based on support request that was raised with Microsoft some years ago.
One last thing to understand here. When setting up Outlook Synchronization, remember that for the synchronization to work it is best to use all 5 default entities:
- CONT_SP : Salespersons
- CONT_COMP : Company contacts
- CONT_PERS : Person contacts
- TASK : To-Do's of type Phone Call in demo or Blank
- APP : To-Do's of type meeting
Salespersons must be synchronized because a Task, Appointment and Meeting in Outlook, does require a Task-owner or Meeting-organizer. We sometimes do see TASK and APP entity in the Outlook Synch User Setup page without any of the contacts entities. In Outlook there are no separate company contacts or person contacts while this difference does exist in Dynamics NAV hence the requirement to use three contact entities.
Hope the information above does give you some more information for the Dynamics NAV partners that are working with customers / businesses that do want ERP contacts, To-Do's, Meeting / Appointments synchronized as Outlook contacts, Tasks, Meetings.
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